HCFA1500 Forms

HCFA 1500 forms are the standard insurance form used by all insurance
companies across the United States to process medical insurance claims. It
is part of HIPAA to standardize all medical insurance billing. HCFA 1500
forms are red and white and can be purchased from many different suppliers
in several different forms.

They can
be purchased either single or multiple copies, continuous form feed, or
laser print, with or without barcode. Which type you decide to
purchase will depend on your type of printer, and/or your need to keep a
copy of the original form. For example, if you do not intend to keep a
copy of the form, and you have a laser printer, you will purchase the
single copy laser forms.

If for some reason
your office requires a copy of the HCFA form as well as the original, you
can purchase the two part continuous feed forms and use a form feed
printer although these are fairly antiquated now. You can also pretty
easily print two claims although this can be costly if you are doing it on
a large scale.

Most practice
management systems are capable of printing the HCFA1500 form itself along
with the claim, but unless you have a color printer that will print the
form in red and the claim in black, you may have a problem submitting the
forms. Some insurance companies will not accept HCFAs that are not
printed in red ink.

Just a funny side
note here. Make sure you keep a supply of the forms on hand. You don't
want to run out. We once ran out, and had to take an old box of continuous
form feed, double copy forms separate them and tear off all the edges so
that they would work in our laser printer! Not a fun task!

Different insurance
companies require different blocks on the HCFA to be completed in a
certain way. All medical billing software comes with the capability to
print charges in the HCFA1500 format. Here's more information
on HCFA (or CMS 1500) instructions.

You will use these forms
whenever you are submitting a paper claim. You may submit all insurance
claims on paper, or only your secondary claims that requires an
attachment. Some insurance companies and no-fault carriers are not ready
to accept electronic transmissions and must be filed on paper.

If you are using a
clearing house, you may submit all your claims to them and they will, for
a charge, turn your claims that cannot be sent electronically to paper.

When purchasing
HCFA 1500 forms, be sure to compare prices. Check
out your cost per copy.

Some companies also
offer HCFA 1500 envelopesto mail HCFA1500s eliminating the
need for labels which can be a big time saver. We purchase two sizes of
the HCFA envelopes. The regular business size window envelopes hold us to
12 - 14 claims and the large size will hold almost a pound of claims.